Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Why am I singling out Goons?

I've already spent the price of a titan on the GRR project leading to the death of about half trillion ISK worth of Goons and servants (assuming Marc results are as good as February) and evicting Goon POCOs from highsec.

My only reason to do that is the firm belief that Goons are evil and must be reformed or defeated. Recently, obvious examples of much worse human beings were found. Erotica 1 and his gang were collecting "bonus round" humiliations for years. NOHO collected singing humiliations on industrial scale. CODE moved from fighting AFK-leeching into full blown tear collection. Goons are pretty mild compared to these and I didn't give a damn about Erotica 1 and mentioned NOHO only as weird guys instead of evil to be defeated. If I'm after "evil", why am I focusing on Goons?

To understand it, we must consider what would be the reaction if someone would make an obviously racist statement. I mean, the fair thing would be to react equally, no matter who made the statement. However in reality, the result would vary largely, depending on who told it:

Random redneck: nobody cares

Simple worker: his boss disciplines him

Business manager: gets fired, company issues an apology

CEO of a large corporation: huge scandal, lawsuits, their stocks dive

President of a country: international condemnation, embargo

Why people are so unfair? Because the danger of that guy being a racist varies largely too. I mean, what would happen if we tolerate his racism:

Random redneck: nothing

Simple worker: harassment of coworkers and maybe clients

Business manager: discrimination of employees and clients

CEO of a large corporation: discrimination of huge amount of people

President of a country: apartheid, maybe even genocide

Goons are singled out as "evil", not because they are standing out with their evil. While they are clearly worse than the average player, they are far from being the worst. After all Erotica 1 was a Goon and got fired for being evil, so they can't be that bad. Goons are singled out because they own half of nullsec. You could live your life without having a clue who Erotica 1 was. You could lose a hauler and an empty pod and shrug off NOHO. You could move if there were miner ganks in your constellation and never be ganked by CODE. But Goons are everywhere, affecting everything, even ice prices. If you are in nullsec, you are fighting against Goons or serving Goons (or being a Goon). You can't just outrun and evade Goons. If they are "evil", you must fight.

What was completely OK, or even charming for a bunch of "pirates" riding Rifters is totally unacceptable from the largest titan blob. Goons didn't do anything but preserved their "goon" culture, despite matured into a superpower. Let's see the largest fruits of this anti-propaganda:

Nulli Secunda, one of the largest nullsec alliance declared their purpose of existence to defeat Goons

Pirate alliances like Mordus Angels and Triumvirate live in NPC space near them and hunt them, while PL, N3 or Russians have no personal enemies

In Asakai everyone who wasn't their blue joined to PL, despite not being blue to PL either

Their largest ally, TEST broke away from them and their leader went "mad" attacking them for no objective reason. Finally TEST rather gave up their Sov than returning to Goon service.

No other nullsec entity collected so many enemies and haters. No it's not the by-product of power, PL is not considered evil, despite their frequent capital ganks. Goons have to realize that they aren't in Rifters anymore. While they are masters of diplomacy (dealing with other leaders), they have the worst PR (dealing with masses of little guys) in the game. Recruitment scams, Burn Jita, Miniluv and the core problem: Goonwaffe members getting away with non-performance that would get a servant in CFC fired. They all make Goons hated, not by leaders, but by simple line members. Did Nulli failcascade after the hellcamp? No, they gained sov and members. Did TEST gave up or disappear? No, the few thousand that survived the collapse are hitting Goons from NPC space. Did "highsec pubbie shitlords" quit the game or tremble before Goons? No, they rallied even to my banner to hit Goons. Think about that: how much Goon hate one must have to ally with me?

I truly believe that it would be the best interest of Goons to accept my terms. Not because of me of course, my GRR project merely rides a wave of Goon hate. They should stop being "evil" simply to avoid l'art pour l'art Goon bashing and hating. Goons did a huge cultural change by accepting renters. They should do one more and get rid of the remnants of their "we are here to destroy your game" propaganda. It's not true anyway, Goons spend much more time in normal sov warfare and ratting than they spend ganking or collecting tears. It wouldn't need actual behavior change, just propaganda change. Until it happens, they have to face constant attack from guys who have no conflicting interests with them, just because they are the "big bad Goons".

Update: as a funny coincidence, there is a recent drama in Brave Newbies and they blame GIA (Goon Intelligence Agency) behind it. Goons deny it and do so believably: why would a secret agent do dumb drama instead of damage? My point is that the overall hate against Goons make them scapegoats even when they are innocent.

17 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The arrogance is astounding. Other than to increase your own self importance I can't think of a single reason why you would wage a war against an organisation working within the rules of the game, a war that you will quite literally never win.

If you want to wage a war on evil then you should be making public the true evil players in game and working to eradicate them instead of making up some imaginary standards that players must abide by to meet your standard of "not evil".

Goons are pirates which is a perfectly valid method of play in EVE and I still haven't seen any evidence from you to support the claim that goons are inherently evil.

Ah, but hang on a second - you make a consistent habit of segregating 'Goons' from 'slaves', even going so far as to make the distinction between 'Goons' in Waffe and 'inner slaves' consisting of the rest of CONDI. Goonwaffe does not own half of nullsec.

The CFC controls a significant chunk of nullsec, yes, but again and again, you've made that case that the rest of the CFC is only 'targeted' because they support the 'evil' of Goons. Because it's Goons that are evil. Because they recruit into Waffe from SA, and they're anti-meritocracy and an abomination unto the EVE community. Waffe. Over and over again, Waffe.

So let's run the numbers here.

'the largest titan blob'. Really? How many of the titans in B-R5RB were from Goonwaffe? Goonwaffe's titan fleet is larger than PL's? N3's? Really? Waffe, all by themselves?

Pirate alliances like Mordus and Tri.. are attacking TNT, and SMA, because they live nearby. When FA lived in Pure Blind/Fade, they attacked them. You say PL, N3, and the Russians have no personal enemies. That's a wonderful line, but it kind of ignores that N3 does have personal enemies: the Russians. SOLAR etc have a personal issue with N3, remember? Vince was his normal wonderful, personable self, and made damned sure of that, now didn't he?

In Asakai everyone who wasn't blue joined to PL because blood in the water, Gevlon. Four months later, everyone was attacking TEST in their home systems. Why? Blood in the water. PL and N3 helped TEST out during the Fountain invasion, but just before that? They were killing them, just like everyone else.

Montolio went nuts, you say. I say he got overly ambitious, and Shadoo reined him in. That frustrated the hell out of him, and it's why he quit. Because he couldn't have his way. The very image of calm, reasoned maturity. TEST 'gave up their sov'? Wow, that's a hell of a spin. TEST made a deal to keep their sov. Then they went ahead and broke that deal, expecting their new friends to be enough to protect them, and wound up losing everything.

No other nullsec entity collected so many enemies and haters.

Really? Because N3's pretty well up there, now ain't they? I mean, say what you like, but they've got 30,000+ enemies right over here, without even counting SOLAR etc.

You rant and rail about how Waffe gets away with things nobody else would. You claim they aren't evaluated. Why? Because they don't worry about paplinks? Again, let's break it down:

The CFC evaluates every alliance's performance after every major war.Every alliance evaluates its member corporations according to its own internal policies.Every corporation sets its own policies for evaluating its members' performance.

Just to have it clearly said:The CFC does not evaluate individual corporations at a Coalition level. Not in any Alliance. EXOP in FCON doesn't answer to Basil. AMOK. in CONDI doesn't answer to Wibla. .NSC. doesn't answer to Mittens.

And we've established before that the CFC doesn't involve itself in internal Alliance policies. The alliances don't tend to involve themselves in internal corporate policies. So where's your beef? Where's your grounds for singling out a single corporation that self-evaluates according to its own policies just like every other corporation in the CFC?

Is it just because they're your white whale?

Because I really can't imagine that anyone in N3 gives a flying fuck about whether or not Waffe members click on CFC paplinks.

As for Nulli gaining sov - yeah, they took it back from the Russians again, after the Russians failed to hold on to what we clawed back for them. And yes, they gained members - from Nexus, and from other groups flipping to avoid losing their space. Totally about the Goon hate, isn't it? Not self-preservation at all.

As for TEST... 'the few thousand'... out of an alliance that had numbered 12,000+. Many of whom went to CONDI. So sure, some of them are in lowsec, hitting... actually, they're attacking the Russians, they're attacking Provi, they're attacking pretty much everyone in range who isn't N3, just like BNI is. Well, except for the way HERO seems to dock up whenever the CFC fleets actually show up.

Your terms? Your terms are a joke, Gevlon, just like they were a joke to RvB. I'm not even talking about the reaction people had to them. It's just basic social sciences, man. The only way cultural change comes to any population is from within, or in response to massive traumatic events. Dictating terms will be successful about as often as flapping your arms to get to the moon. Getting shot at in hi-sec isn't close to massive traumatic events. So that means it has to come from within - just like the change that's come already did.

And let's face it, Gevlon, people who joined Lemmings would've joined to shoot pretty much anyone, considering they were being promised their losses being bankrolled. Including Marmite. Money's fungible. You made it possible for them to expand operations. They'd have targeted the big, fat, juicy nullbears no matter what - they were before, they are now that Lemmings have kicked you to the curb. Oh, sure, they'll still take your money, they'll still play the game... but everyone saw what was in that SOTA, Gevlon. Your money is the only thing of yours they want. Otherwise? They're laughing at you, laughing all the way to the bank. And everyone but you can see it.

And the worst part is, the only people willing to be honest with you, the people who literally have nothing to lose by being honest with you... you've already decided are going to lie for purely propaganda purposes. Just like the way you run numbers on wars while filtering out data that disagrees with your pre-determined conclusions. You've come up with a narrative, and you're in complete denial about the very possibility of anything counter to it.

Hint: Goons considered BoB evil and fought it for just that one reason.

A rather simplistic view of history. Goons actually had no opinion on BoB - BoB turned it's attention to eradicating Goons due to an attitude of superiority and eliteness. They didn't like the fact that a group of then adorable newbies were taking space - space that they considered theirs. BoB actually were on the record as saying they wanted to own ALL space - something Goons have never themselves stated is one of their goals.

The modern Goon oraganization is what was brought about during BoB's reign of tyranny. But the reason they fought BoB wasn't because they thought BoB evil. They fought BoB because BoB had an irrational hatred of them. It was self defense... but there was no thought of evil.. that is until very VERY late in the war.

You have a very simplistic view of eve history and it doesn't lend any particular strength to your argument.

Goons are not, by any objective measure, evil... and you've failed to prove they are

@Arrendis: slaves - by definition - own nothing. Everything under TNT, SMA, FA, FCON, whatever tag is under Goon control. If tomorrow The Mittani would say "TNT did not do enough participation, will be purged and its space given to EXE" it would be done. Same for titans to a lesser extent. The SMA titans jump and shoot as the Goons say. It's true that the individual pilot can leave SMA and then his titan gets out of Goon control, but that's his individual and control and not SMA control. SMA has no control over the SMA titans.

Russians and N3 are both Sov holders. They want each others space because of having space. They are COMPETITORS. Triumvirate doesn't want Deklein sov. They just want dead Goons. Like Lemmings didn't want (and now doesn't have) Goon POCOs, just wanted Goon POCOs out.

Montolio could attack something else in his ambition. Like SOLAR (it had all drone regions back then). Why did he go for Goons, if not for personal hatred??

You saw my killboard analysis and no one doubted the numbers. It clearly shows that Waffe PvP is about 1/3 of inner slaves and Razor. It's not a hard guess that anyone else would be kicked for such non-performance. Your "CFC doesn't evaluate corps" nonsense is just hand weaving. Theoretically it's possible that FA would have an equally bad corp and the rest of the corps pick up the slack, so FA in general remains good, but that's very unlikely. Can you name any corp in CFC that is as bad as Waffe?

About N3 members not giving a damn about Waffe paplinks, you are dead wrong. Probably that's the reason why CFC doesn't own all nullsec. I mean why fight them when you can join them? Because you'd be second class citizen. You click paplinks, they just rat in Deklein.

Of course that Lemmings/Marmites want nothing but my money. That's called "meritocracy" and "capitalism". I do NOT expect them to like me. I expect them to kill CFC in which they deliver pretty good. Why would I WANT them to love me? Does love shows up on the charts?

slaves - by definition - own nothing. Everything under TNT, SMA, FA, FCON, whatever tag is under Goon control. If tomorrow The Mittani would say "TNT did not do enough participation, will be purged and its space given to EXE" it would be done. Same for titans to a lesser extent. The SMA titans jump and shoot as the Goons say. It's true that the individual pilot can leave SMA and then his titan gets out of Goon control, but that's his individual and control and not SMA control. SMA has no control over the SMA titans.

Oh, totally. That's exactly how everything within the Coalition operates. The Mittani makes all the decisions, unilaterally, with no input or discussion from the rest of the CFC Directorate.

Also, elephants can survive hard vaccuum, unassisted.

You establish a set of criteria, ignore anything that deviates from your narrative, and then declare that everyone agrees you're right.

Here, quick examples:

Russians and N3 are both Sov holders. They want each others space because of having space. They are COMPETITORS.

Yup. They certainly are competitors. And Vince went and shat up the Russian chat channels in-game, insulting Russian women, in Russian. N3 may have nothing personal against the Russians who oppose them, but the Russians... oh, the Russians, definitely have something personal against Vince, and the organization he's involved with. Looks like you whiffed there.

Triumvirate doesn't want Deklein sov.

TRI just tried to flip an SMA station. If they'd succeeded, they'd have sov. SWING, and a miss!

You saw my killboard analysis and no one doubted the numbers.

Except for all of the people who openly said 'hey, look, Gevlon, your numbers don't take into account X, Y, or Z.' And did so on this blog. Strike threee, Gevlon.

Now, let's go ahead and look at your amazing lack of context...

Can you name any corp in CFC that is as bad as Waffe?

Let's see!

January numbers, GEWNS had a participation rate of 0.97, with 1.00 being Average Participation Per Pilot. Did other corps in the CFC have similar numbers? I know that the corp I was in during the Fountain War finished that campaign with a participation rate of 0.80 or so. They had no pressure whatsoever to leave the CFC - they did, mind you, but that was because the corporate leadership wanted to go and fail at running their own alliance out in Great Wildlands. They certainly weren't pushed out, any more than I was pushed out of their corp. They wanted to go do something else. I didn't. So I did what I wanted to do. I stayed where I can play the game I want to play. (As we've already covered, I'm the utter freak who likes sov grinding.)

So... yeah! In fact, I can name at least one corp that survived evaluation in the CFC just fine, performing worse than Waffe.

OH NOES! I CAN HAS DATA THAT DOESN'T FIT YOUR NARRATIVE!!!

Note: The fact that you are demonstrably wrong will not change your opinion on your correctness even a little bit.

Vince is an ass. I despise him too. That doesn't make an alliance evil. If the Russians hate a whole coalition for one despicable man, they are wrong.

Tell me, how can Waffe have good participation when they literally have 1/3 kills and losses compared to rest of Goonswarm? I'd guess doctored participation results. Can you refer to any third party data?

Tell me, how can Waffe have good participation when they literally have 1/3 kills and losses compared to rest of Goonswarm?

At a guess? First off, Waffe pilots tend to be in the game longer. That means they're more likely to be flying capitals, and fulfilling specialized roles - bridging titans, cynos, scouts, recon, towering systems for GSOL.

Sure, Goons do all the invisible things. Not just the ratting in Deklein!

About Vince Draken: have you actually read the post? Goons are targeted for being evil AND powerful. NOHO is more evil, but irrelevant. Vince is more powerful than NOHO, but much less than Goons. Vince leads NC., which is NOT controlling or even bigger than Nulli Secunda, even less Pandemic Legion. Calling PL and NS2 as "NC. pets" would be a bad joke. Vince won't shape the future of EVE, and if I have to guess, when Nulli grows big enough, they will dump this shit. Can you imagine SMA growing big enough to purge Goonwaffe?

As for NCdot not being the ones in the driver's seat of N3? Sure they're not. That's why Vince is the one who was handed the keys at B-R. That's why NCdot was the ones who pulled all the way back, while Nulli etc were left to get assets stuck in a camped system.

And who said Goons don't rat in Deklein? What's been pointed out previous is that you do not have accurate metrics. TNT has full ratting rights throughout Deklein. You can run the numbers on ratting kills in Deklein all you want, you can't tell me how many of them are Goons, and how many aren't.

Nor am I saying that Waffe does all the invisible things*. Only that your killboard-based metrics take into account precisely none of the vast array of active, necessary roles that go into successfully prosecuting a war.

But yeah. Not even an iota of possibility that you might not be right. Totally called it.

* - I know they don't do all of them. If they did, I wouldn't do any of them. And I do, so there's that.

As an one month old player, I live in constant terror of what lies beyond in low sec, and the Goonswarm. To me they are what the maps like to call "there be dragons here" and aparently they prey on risk adverse players like me, for the sake of upsetting and force us to quit playing. They just want to see the universe burn it would seem. At least someone wants to strike balance in the game.

As an one month old player, I live in constant terror of what lies beyond in low sec, and the Goonswarm. To me they are what the maps like to call "there be dragons here" and aparently they prey on risk adverse players like me, for the sake of upsetting and force us to quit playing. They just want to see the universe burn it would seem. At least someone wants to strike balance in the game.

Well, Sun, as someone who gets twitchy because high-sec is full of neuts, let me address some of your concerns:

1)New players are the life's blood of Eve, and the Goons know this. The Goons, in fact, absolutely love newbies. Granted, they like their own newbies more than other newbies, but there's a reason they liked TEST before Monty started getting stupid, and Brave, too.

2)Nullsec in general is 'Here Be Dragons', yeah. If you want to get a taste of it without committing to one of the big enemy-making power blocs, try Providence. Remember, there's 2 philosophies out there, and while most of Null is 'Not Blue, Shoot It' (NBSI), Provi is 'Not Red? Don't Shoot' (NRDS). So go out there if you want to get your feet wet, and ask about how you can get clued in about who to run from - just expect to have to pay to dock up.

3)While there are definitely some within Goons who would almost certainly like to see the universe burn, for the most part, the Goons have built things up, not just torn them down. They've been one of the consistent voices, analysing CCP's mechanics changes, pointing out where things will break down, and trying to make it better. For themselves, sure, but for everyone else, too.

I'm not going to tell you that Goons are all shining examples of humanity. They're not. But in the end, they're no better or worse than any other group of people. Don't buy the hype. In either direction.

As a one month old player, your source of information about Goons is likely the same as many other peoples, hyperbole on the forums, hype in the media, and general "I hate goons because I heard they did some stuff"

I have spoken to people who hate goons because one of their members suicide ganked them. When I check their kill board, I see that they have been ganked by other people. So, I ask if they also hate these other groups.

Their reply? "No, just Goons, I know it is illogical, but everyone hates them because they ruin the game"

Eve media and communication is no different than in real life, and my media tells me on a daily basis that something will kill me, that some group are a threat to world peace and that there is an impending crisis.

Your random redneck who you think will have nothing bad come of his unchecked racism?

Who do you think carries out racially motivated murders and assaults?

But then, every random redneck has a valid reason (to himself) for wanting to go up against people that he perceives as a threat.* Taking the jobs of "native" people* Claiming social benefits* Overrunning his language/culture* Causing social problems by hanging about on streets* Increasing crime levels in his area* Taking all the available women of his own group

Now..all of these are valid to him, and yes, of course, he does not have a national impact, but, when he then goes all vigilante and proclaims he is helping protect his own culture, are you still sure they are harmless?

Which comes back to the question regarding you and goons....who are you to decide who gets to play where in the sandbox?

If it was more your style, I would have said it was a thinly veiled plan to take over the pocos and milk the PI "slaves"

As it is, it seems like a vendetta based on something you have not disclosed.CODE are much more present in high sec, much more disruptive (And please, no saying they only blow up bot aspirants, you know as well as we do that is complete crap)Marmite dec industrial corps, or whoever they are paid to dec....how is this not disruptive to good, or bad players?